Best Swiss Brands 2014

The Swiss business magazine “Bilanz” recently published the 7th edition of the annual ranking “Best Swiss Brands 2014” produced by Interbrand. The methodology of the ranking is the same as for the worldwide edition “Best Global Brands” which has already been assessed by my colleague Marco Casanova in a “Rated Ranking”.

As in previous years, the “usual suspects”, i.e. Swiss mega brands, have made it to the top positions of the 2014 ranking. Nescafé made it to the pole position, as it already was the case in 2013. The Nestlé coffee brand is followed by Roche (same position as in 2013) and Nestlé, which changed places with Novartis (number 3 in 2013).

For the first time ever, the ranking takes into account mere B2B brands. The industry giant ABB made it off the cuff to position 7. Other B2B brands in the top 50 are for example Swiss RE or the concrete manufacturer Holcim.

The banking sector is of particular interest for Switzerland. The highest-ranking banking brand is Credit Suisse on position 8, followed by UBS on position 10.

Oddly, other “usual suspects” as the prestigious airline “Swiss” are missing. In the accompanying article Interbrand explains this omission with the alleged fact that “in the airlines industry brands have almost no impact on the business results”. This is a rather strange claim with which I totally disagree. According to my experience and studies, it does make a large difference for the booking and recommendation behaviours of frequent flyers whether a flight is executed by e.g. Singapore airlines or by an unknown flight carrier. This is even more surprising as “Bilanz” annually publishes an airline ranking which also takes into account the opinion of Swiss frequent flyers.

About Markus Renner, PhD

Markus Renner is Co-Owner and Managing Partner of Branding-Institute AG in Basel since 2008, consulting multinational corporations and organizations as strategic advisor and innovator in the fields of strategic communications, brand and reputation management.